Requiem for a dream

Navi asked for this post, thanks for the suggestion; so here goes…

It is easy and fun to influence what happens in your dreams!

There is a phenomenon called lucid dreaming. A lucid dream is a dream in which the sleeper is aware that he or she is dreaming. When the dreamer is lucid, he or she can actively participate in and often manipulate the imaginary experiences in the dream environment (wikipedia).

There seem to be many ways to induce lucid dreams, for me this easy way works:

A) practice dream-memory. This isn’t only a means to an end, it’s fun in itself. Try and remember something from your dreams every day. Try and remember a little more than you remember per default. Try and keep that memory throughout the day (dream diaries are supposed to help, never done that though…)

B) be aware of dream-indicators. If you read the same text twice and it’s a completely different text, or if you do not remember what you did 15 minutes ago. Or if the person you’re talking to is suddenly a completely different person than they were a minute ago. Or if you are writing an school-exam when you’re really 40… face it: you are dreaming!

C) sleep a lot. This is also a fun habbit 🙂 Try to get at least 8 hours of sleep, so that you’ll have long REM sleep phases in the morning.

D) make reality checks a habit. Now here’s the only “investment” required for lucid dreaming. You should make it a habit to check your current situation for dream-indicators about every two hours at least. (“Is this person who he was 10 minutes ago? Do I remember what I did 15 minutes ago? Let’s read that sign again and see if it has changed…”) Once every hour would be even better.

Now if you are in rem sleep, dreaming away, and habitually make a reality check, chances are good you will realize that you are dreaming. Enjoy your lucid dream. Try flying, it’s fun! And don’t be so excited about it that it wakes you up, or you’ll spoil it! 🙂

If your dream fades away into nothing you’re likely to wake up. If you want a little more lucid dreaming, try rubbing your hands until the dream is solid again.

I read somewhere that lucid dreams can be used to exercise motorial skills like skate-boarding by the way. Also there’s people who use this direkt link to their unconscious mind for creative tasks like composing.